There are many medical conditions which may be treated more effectively than they are today if the weight of a patient having such a condition could be easily and continuously monitored without the need other get the patient out of bed or weigh the bed separately from the patient for weighing with the patient in combination at a later time.
The present weighing systems for bedridden patients in hospitals and/or long term care facilities include chairs and/or bulky slings coupled with scales in which a patient is moved from his/her bed for purposes of weighing. These systems are cumbersome and require a substantial amount of human intervention to operate. Many sick patients are too unstable to tolerate the amount of motion these systems require of them. Other present devices include a large scale upon which an empty bed is first weighed as a calibration followed by subsequent weighing of the patient/bed combination at a later time. A patient's weight is thus found by subtracting the initial bed weight from the combination total. Such a scale is expensive and thus represents a limited resource. These devices may not be suitable if a patient's stay in a facility extends over a prolonged period of time.
Some examples of conditions where the weight of a patient is a significant indicator of the effectiveness of treatment include, but are not limited to, Congestive Heart Failure, Open Heart Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Sepsis and Extreme Diarrhea/Intestinal Upset. Said conditions often render a patient weak, debilitated and unable to stand without assistance, thus making it almost impossible to weigh him/her in the conventional manner (i.e., standing up on a scale).
A treatment for Congestive Heart Failure includes the elimination of retained excess fluid wherein body weight is a clear indication of success or failure of said treatment. The same can be said of Open Heart Surgery, which is often characterized by Congestive Heart Failure, wherein additional fluid is added to the body during surgery. Further, during Vascular Surgery, which may often be performed on Congestive Heart Failure patients, blood vessels leak resulting in excess body water which must be excreted by the kidneys. Sepsis, which is a condition wherein bacteria in found in the blood stream, also results in leakage of water from blood vessels into tissues necessitating treatment with additional fluid in order to maintain blood pressure. Lastly, the treatment of Extreme Diarrhea and Irritated Intestines often require massive amounts of fluid recitation to treat dehydration. For each of these conditions the patient's body weight is a marker for clinical progress or lack thereof. Indeed, all of these conditions require monitoring of the patient's body weight in order to regulate the treatment for the condition. Therefore, a simple and easy way to consistently and continuously weigh a patient throughout his/her treatment is necessary.
Thus, there is a need for a system that can monitor the weight of a patient in a hospital bed without the need to move the patient. There is a further need for such a system to be inexpensive and easy to operate.
Systems have been suggested to monitor the presence or absence of patients in hospital beds automatically, but none for continuously monitoring their weight while in the bed, independent of the bed's weight itself. It has been suggested that a bed position and activity sensing apparatus could be constructed by using an elongated sensor for placement parallel to one axis of the bed. The sensor includes first and second conductive members where the first conductive member has a resistance per unit length substantially different from that of the second conductor member. One of the conductive members is electrically coupled to a source of electrical power wherein the weight of the body in the bed urges the first and second conductive members together to define an electrical path for output of a sensor signal which varies in magnitude responsive to the position of the body along the sensor.
Such a system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,353,012, which issued on Oct. 4, 1994 to Barham et al. and is entitled "Bed Position and Activity Sensing Apparatus". Other patents relating to this subject matter are U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,488 which issued Dec. 1, 1988 to Musick and is entitled "Bed Sensor and Alarm" and U.S. Pat. No. 4,565,910 which issued Jan. 21, 1986 to Mersick et al. and is entitled "Switch Apparatus Responsive to Distortion". These systems, while having an electrical device mounted in a patient's bed or adhered to a patient's sheet, are used for sensing the whereabouts of the patient and are not used for weighing the patient.
Devices exist similar to the switches of the above mentioned patents which are used as potentiometers. Such a device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,157,372 ("the '372 patent"), which issued Oct. 20, 1992 to Langford and is entitled "Flexible Potentiometer". The '372 patent is hereby incorporated by reference as though fully set forth herein. Such devices are manufactured and sold by Flexpoint of Midvale, Utah 84047 under the title of Flexible Sensor Systems. It is known that the degree of flexure of such a device will provide a measurable resistance indicative of the curvature thereof.